


Waiting

by doublejoint



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:07:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29759385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: Baze keeps moving, and Chirrut keeps hoping.
Relationships: Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus
Kudos: 6
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2021: Apocalypse No





	Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 28 of the February Ficlet Challenge: Famine

Baze is doing blaster maintenance, the same way he always does, the same way he used to recite out loud to himself--he knows the steps too well by now, but Chirrut could recite them in his mind at exactly the right rhythm. That’s the sound of the cloth in the ammunition chamber, and next is the pop of the barrel detaching. Baze likes things familiar, likes things where he can expect them. It’s perhaps a side effect of growing up around those more attuned to the Force than he is; they have an advantage and he wants to level that out as much as he can, take as much within his control into his own hands. That’s not what the Force is, though; Baze gets that (he is the most devoted, the most versed in ancient texts and parables) but he can’t resist his own tendencies. 

But, in a way, he has carved out his own balance, and Chirrut leans on that often, perhaps more than he should. Though it’s never more than Baze can give him. 

“Something is coming,” says Baze.

“Yes,” says Chirrut (he never lies, never would, even if Baze were somehow unaware of the situation, the uneasy slowness and anticipation hanging over the temple). “The encroaching darkness in the Force. A famine of light.”

“Famine?”

There’s an edge in Baze’s voice. He’s too literal.

“A lack of Force energy to draw on. A lack of balance. There is no balance right now, but there is enough, but this—”

Chirrut waves his hand in front of him, if Baze is looking.

“Oh. Can you tell where it’s coming from?”

“The same place all this darkness comes from.”

“So you don’t know.”

“We don’t know.”

“Hm.”

Replace the barrel; restock the ammunition; snap the chamber shut. They continue without speaking, until Baze slings the rifle onto his back again. There is a long road shrouded in darkness ahead of them, dull and bleak, but the dark times have come before, and eventually will recede. Chirrut would like to live until then, at least, but that is up to the will of the Force.

* * *

The darkness comes in waves, or at least what Chirrut imagines waves to be, if he ever finds himself in an ocean. Walls of water on his feet, at his knees, up to his chest, anger and fear and loss, loss, loss. There are things that are gone that cannot be recovered, not one dark path but millions, billions, dominating the destiny of all who walk it, however unwilling or unknowing, herded along as if with rifles at their backs, some of them. Others stalk down it like predators, so certain that this is where they were meant to go. Things can change; paths can fork, can twist and turn, and those walking the paths can stumble. Nothing is absolute, and eventually, some of those paths will end--but what of their dark descendants? Will this be ten years, fifty, a thousand? 

Chirrut’s own thoughts sound impatient, like a small child playing in the sand. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter, but--overall--it does matter, in the lives of all of them, in Baze’s, and his, and all the Guardians’, in those of the people of Jedha. They have the misfortune of being born into a dark time like this, and their lives, but an instant in the universe, are important, because they’re important to them. They will have meaning. Nothing is wasted simply by existing at a time like this. That line of nihilistic thinking doesn’t work, twists itself like a paradoxical stair that leads both up and down at once, a conceptual infinity that never turns correctly. 

They hear tidings of an Empire, helmed by the former chancellor of the Republic. The betrayal of the Jedi, difficult to believe--with clues, it is possible to unravel the source of the darkness, the center of everything, this Emperor. 

“It could be our bias,” Baze allows. “But even without feeling in the Force—”

“But you do feel enough,” says one of the Temple elders. 

Chirrut squeezes Baze’s hand. Baze would much rather be fighting the Sith with his blaster, something futile, even if the Sith did not have the Force clawed to their side like dough scraped from a bowl, feasting like yeast, growing and growing seemingly out of thin air, a tiny ball that fits in one of Chirrut’s hands grown to something he cannot lift with both. That is what he does best, better than talking or feeling, simply doing, working, moving. 

Chirrut can’t blame him for the impulse. He’d like to, too; a good smack with a staff would do nothing against the Sith, and even if it would, the darkness would simply scatter and regrow, if not cut off at the source. More than dough, they’re like an invasive plant, hardy in the desert, vines shredding into the outsides of buildings year by year. They’re more that kind of predator than they are a roaring carnivore.

* * *

The Force is with them. The Force is with the temple, within all of them, within the kyber crystals and the city, the planet itself. Yet, like the well just outside the temple grounds, it is running slow and dry, lethargic, choked by the darkness. Daily life on Jedha is much the same as it always was, but that won’t continue indefinitely. There is something yet to come, lurking behind them, that has not yet crept its insidious way in.

Baze works on upgrading his blaster so he’ll be ready--but, Chirrut wonders, will there be anything they can fight against as they are? If they were Jedi, would there be anything they could do? The days are short; the nights are still; the temple is quiet, dampened. Baze lies awake next to Chirrut, pretending to sleep, wishing himself there. All they can do is hope, it seems, but that is quite a lot, on its own. It is a burden, often unacknowledged, but it is one they can faithfully shoulder together. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
